Is hotel email marketing in danger of becoming wallpaper?!!
This week Radisson Hotels are telling me that I can stay with them during the Olympics at ‘great rates’. Within their email there is a somewhat boring chart of hotels and corresponding per night prices. It is to be honest somewhat difficult to identify just why Radisson have been tempted to describe the rates as ‘great’!
Jurys Inn are offering me 25% off if I book today. OK, I get that and it sounds like a reasonable and straightforward offer. And from Jurys point of view at least there is a strong offer and call to action.
Hotel Arts in Barcelona tell me that their restaurant terraces are now open. Well, that is a surprise, I can sit outside and eat in Spain in June, what a revelation! If they instead had offered me a room upgrade during a weekend break (yes, I live in the UK so I am hardly likely to pop over for lunch on the terrace), I might have been a lot more interested.
Malmaison are promoting their Secret Summer Sale. It’s ‘blooming marvelous’, they say. But they do promote it with some style and humor, offering for instance a Euro 2012 football widows package.
This is a short review of some of the 15 hotel emails I have received this week, and it’s only Wednesday, but I am already starting to become more and more disengaged and disappointed.
Successful email campaigns will rely on customer targeting, segmentation and stage of customer journey. In a recent email marketing industry census by Econsultancy, it is said that companies who are practicing basic segmentation are 95% more likely to rate email ROI as excellent or good.
Whilst many opinions exist about creative and copy writing within emails as well as subject lines, template layouts and positions of call to actions, we believe that providing customers with content that is rich, relevant and contextual wins every time.
Email marketing might be cost effective but it doesn’t need to be cheap or annoying.
For instance every lunchtime and probably plenty of other times as well here at LAW Creative everyone is engaging with videos and social media content. Video is now one of the most popular mediums for entertainment and information gathering.
Interestingly SK+G Advertising has just made a series of short video films for The Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Each of the six films which have high production values are just 39 seconds long. They promote The Aria as a desirable and seductive destination and provide targets with an enjoyable and engaging way to interact with the brand.
Of course video is more expensive to create than a boring chart of hotel prices. But it is probably priceless in terms of brand engagement, imparting information and rewarding potential guests for bothering to open an email.
Email marketing may be cost effective. But it does need to be targeted and it doesn’t have to be cheap! And it definitely doesn’t have to become just wallpaper!!
If you would like to know how to make your email campaigns more visible and more effective please connect with keith.sammels@lawcreative.co.uk
LAW Creative is a specialist Hotel and Marketing Communications Agency. ‘Is hotel marketing in danger of becoming wallpaper?’ is a LAW Creative ‘quick view’ by Keith Sammels Creative Director LAW Creative.